Diagnostic ultrasound has become invaluable to healthcare professions for the purpose of imaging soft tissue without the risk of exposure to damaging, ionizing radiation. However, the majority of commercially available transducers have rigid, fixed interfaces that cannot conform to the surface of the human body. Such limitations both introduce a potential air gap (requiring the application of ultrasound gel) and make long-term monitoring impractical. In this work, I propose a novel flexible 2D ultrasound phased array with adaptive phasing that is capable of compensating for the radius of curvature. I describe the phasing algorithm and illustrate the detrimental effect of a lack of phase correction through simulation. I conduct phase detection by using time of arrival (TOA) without additional external hardware. In addition to simulations, I provide details of the fabrication process of a flexible 16 by 16 element array. The manufactured array, with an operating frequency of 1.4MHz and bandwidth of 41.3%, was capable of generating pressures up to 600 kPa. Finally, I conduct an in-vivo human study to demonstrate the functionality of the array on a human humerus. Although visible without phase correction, the location of the bone can easily be tracked in real-time after applying the correction algorithm.

With over half a century of medical ultrasound support, proven efficacy, and increased popularity, why is it that over half our planet’s population does not have access to ultrasound imaging? In 2015 when I joined the doctoral program, I embarked to not only understand this problem but to provide a solution. This document will walk you through this journey, detailing the challenge of creating my very own ultrasound system with the purpose of it being highly accessible to people who need it the most. I had the vision to take this further; not only did I aim to create an open-source portable ultrasound- I also wanted to see this in the hands of users. This dissertation will show you how collaboration between students of varying disciplines can help propel research to the point of product development. A full ultrasound system including both hardware and software has been developed and tested using commercial ultrasound phantoms. This document will present progress chronologically, starting with the first attempts at using audible piezoelectric buzzers to generate a signal, where the first proof of concept is met. In this dissertation, you will follow the continuous development of a 1) ultrasound analog circuit, 2) mechanical transducer probe, 3) analog signal acquisition system, and 4) imaging software coupled with the user interface. The open-source portable ultrasound research has been successful in providing both hardware and software solutions, combined as a single package in an end-to-end integrated system. This has never been done before. During a time when “data is gold”, this project has also created an open platform where users can collect and share data, enabling collaborations and propulsion of open-access medical screening technologies. This research has developed the lowest-cost 3D scanning ultrasound transducer that we know of at this time. This is inherently novel and transcendental.

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Neuromodulatory systems, such as the cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF), are promising targets of behavioral neuroscientific research because of the clear role(s) they play in fundamental neural and behavioral plasticity processes. Previous research suggests that the CBF is a promising target for augmenting post-stroke behavioral rehabilitation. Several studies were conducted to establish a novel paradigm for investigating and ameliorating post-stroke related motor deficits in a rodent model. The first two studies describe the invention and validation of a novel apparatus for conducting individualized rodent research in an environmentally and socially enriched context. The second study specifically investigated how this approach yields novel insights into post-stroke motor deficits. The third study describes how electrical stimulation of the CBF may improve poststroke motor rehabilitation. Together, these studies are expected to improve current stroke models, our understanding of how the CBF supports fundamental learning processes, and how to best manipulate the CBF to improve recovery from neurological injury.

Parkinson' Disease (PD) is a motor disorder characterized by rigidity, tremor, and hypokinesia with secondary manifestations like defective posture and gait, mask like face and dementia. Over the years it may lead to inability to move, breath and ultimately patient may succumb to chest infection and embolism. Prevalence studies show that more than six million people around the world suffer from PD. At present, there is no cure for PD but there are effective treatments that can slow the progression of the disease and regulate its affects. PD results from a deficiency of dopamine so most drugs that produce a salutary effect in PD either potentiate dopamine or work as dopamine agonists. Hence, to keep the symptoms of PD to a minimum it is very important that the medications be consumed regularly, so that the dopamine level is maintained in the body of the subject. Electronic pillbox logger is a device that has been designed to ensure this very much required medication adherence in PD subjects, which can also be used to measure the response to oral medication. This work describes the design and implementation of an electronic pillbox logger for use by people suffering from Parkinson's disease (PD). The pillbox logger is designed to track medication adherence and prompt the user to take medication on time. It is pocket-sized, portable, and compartmented. It has a variety of alarm systems to remind the user to take the correct dose of their medication at the correct time. Most importantly, it keeps an electronic log of the time of dosage consumption by detecting the presence/absence of pills in the pillbox. This overcomes major limitations of other pillboxes with a logging function that are often too large to carry, contain a single compartment, or only record the time the container was opened rather than the presence or absence of pills. The proposed pillbox logger complements a wearable device under development for people with Parkinson's disease that continuously monitors impaired movement. The combination of the pillbox logger with the wearable sensor will permit clinicians to determine the response to oral therapies, which can be used to optimize therapy. People with PD consume similar pills throughout the day hence the pillbox logger has been designed to detect the presence/absence of pills in general in the pillbox rather than which specific pills are absent or present in the pillbox logger. This feature of the current design that the device records knowledge about pills in general in the pillbox logger and not about any specific pills is a major reason why the current design is specific to PD subjects only. However, though the current design of the pillbox logger is designed for people with Parkinson's Disease, the pillbox is suitable for other maladies in which the timing of the medication is critical. The described pillbox logger was built and the design was validated after running a number of tests. The battery powered pillbox logger is able to accurately store the information about the actual presence/absence of pills in each compartment of the pillbox. It is capable of sending out reminder alarms at the right time of the day and can be connected to a host computer using a USB cable to read the stored information from it. The proper functional working of the pillbox logger after thorough testing proves that the design of pillbox logger was successful.

The topic of this master’s thesis is design of fire fighting and rescue vehicle, more specifically wildland fire apparatus primarily intended for difficult terrain. The main aim of this design is to create functional object fulfilling ergonomic, technical, and aesthetic demands.

Modern implantable and body worn medical devices leverage wireless telemetry to improve patient experience and expand therapeutic options. Wireless medical devices are subject to a unique set of regulations in which monitoring of the available frequency spectrum is a requirement. To this end, implants use software protocols to assess the in-band activity to determine which channel should be used. These software protocols take valuable processing time and possibly degrade the operational lifetime of the battery. Implantable medical devices often take advantage of a single chip transceiver as the physical layer for wireless communications. Embedding the channel assessment task in the transceiver hardware would free the limited resources of the microprocessor. This thesis proposes hardware modifications to existing transceiver architectures which would provide an automated channel assessment means for implantable medical devices. The results are applicable beyond medical device applications and could be employed to benefit any low-power, wireless, battery-operated equipment.